


mine to keep warm

by cinderfell



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Extremely Vague Spoilers For Hedwyn's Backstory, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Takes Place Right Before The First Liberation Rite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 17:52:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11674137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/pseuds/cinderfell
Summary: The cold, Hedwyn, and the Reader's realization of inevitability.





	mine to keep warm

**Author's Note:**

> no finishing the game before fic writing we die like men and cry about the ending later. thanks to [bec](http://archiveofourown.org/users/woahrebecca/) for the quick beta since timezones meant she was awake and willing and also since she finished the game before me LMAO.
> 
> title snagged from "keep warm" by ingrid michaelson

Hedwyn has never been more freezing in his life.

True, Mount Alodiel is beautiful in its own way, especially at night, the area riddled with ancient hints at times gone by and those who walked this path they’re on now long before them, but that hardly makes up for the cold. Even with an extra layer thrown over his usual red cloak, the chill still seeps down into his bones, feeling almost as if it’s touching parts of his soul that he really, _really_ would rather remain untouched.

He sits around the campfire with the Harp, Pamitha, who looks just as miserable in the cold as he is. She makes decent company, he finds, quick-witted and charming.

Midway through attempting to eat one of the many, ah, _creative_ culinary experiments he attempted with their limited food options, Hedwyn watches Sandalwood-- the man who seemingly put Hedwyn on this path to begin with, who Hedwyn is still trying to connect to the persona he formed in his head of his strange informer-- step into the blackwagon while the Reader tends to her bandages. They’re alone for a few minutes, and while there are occasionally hushed voices, the majority of their time together is in silence. Still, he can’t help but shake the feeling that the conversation has not ended just because he can no longer hear them.

Eventually, Sandalwood steps out of their makeshift home and wanders off somewhere out of sight. The Reader remains inside. Quiet. She’s always so quiet.

He exchanges looks with Pamitha over the fire.

“You or I?” the Harp asks, tilting her head to one side and shaking out her wings a bit.

He raises an eyebrow. “You’ll check on her?”

“If you won’t.” Pamitha raises her ever-present bottle of moonshine in his direction, a small smile on her face. “She seems to take comfort in your presence, and I think we’ve both seen how your informant can shake her. If nothing else, at least go in and ask her if she wants to come out and drink with us out here by the fire.”

Pamitha shivers, drawing her wings in tighter around her again.

“It’s very cold up here. I’m sure the dear would appreciate some warmth, be it literal or,” she regards him with an amused twinkle in her seafoam eyes, “metaphorical.”

She takes another swig of her moonshine.

“I think we could all use some metaphorical warmth,” Hedwyn says with a smile, and it earns a laugh from the Harp.

“Well said!” she says. “Out here? We definitely all could. Especially from that warm voice of yours.”

He snorts.

A metallic rattle catches both of their ears, and Hedwyn turns to watch the Reader, clad in heavy layers to block out the chill, step out of the blackwagon door slowly. She wears a strange expression, one he has trouble pinning from this distance. She doesn’t glance around the clearing they’re parked in, or even at the campfire not far away where he and Pamitha sit, but simply walks around the wagon and disappears behind it.

“Huh,” Pamitha says, tilting her head to one side as she looks in the direction the Reader vanished. Her eyes track back to Hedwyn. “So, have any warmth in you? Because she seems uninterested in the literal kind.”

He sets the bowl of soup he’s been spooning at for the past ten minutes down on the ground-- it’s not very good, despite his best efforts, and he’s a bit glad to have an excuse to stop trying to eat it-- and stands, reaching his hands out to warm by the campfire once more before he leaves the Harp to her drink.

He doesn’t have to wander nearly as far as he thought he would, finding her sitting on the back of the blackwagon, looking up at the sky as if searching for answers. And perhaps she is. She sees things in the stars that the rest of them don’t, a Reader of more than just words and books but of the night sky itself.

“Care for some company?” he asks, and she startles only briefly.

She tenses, recognizes his voice, and relaxes again. “I certainly won’t protest.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” he jokes, and that pulls a small smile from her, but it’s almost hesitant. She doesn’t take her eyes off the sky. He takes a seat next to her. She remains silent. He rubs his hands together for warmth.

So.

“So,” he starts, trying his best to keep his voice warm like Pamitha teased, “a bit chilly out here, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she agrees, although it’s distant. Like she’s focusing on something else.

Alright.

“Are you alright?” he finally asks, because he’s not sure how else to dance around it, so why bother?

There’s a thoughtful sadness in her eyes, reflecting the starlight as she tips her head back a bit more. The night sky seems almost closer here in Mount Alodiel, and all its spots of light cast her features in silver and shadow.

“I’m going to die out here, aren’t I?”

He stills, caught between her question and the sorrow on her face as she turns to look at him.

Ah. So that’s what Sandalwood spoke of to her.

But the way she says it, almost as if she didn’t--

Oh.

He stares down at his hands, suddenly overcome with shame at accidentally keeping a secret from the very person pulling the strings of their little ragtag band and getting them out of the Downside. “We thought you knew.”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t… know anything.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head harder at that.

“Don’t,” she says, and there’s a firmness in her voice that makes him stop. She always speaks with a sort of hesitance, like she’s constantly unsure of what she’s doing. This, though, the tone she uses now-- it carries the weight of her full presence, like she sounds when she oversees the Rites. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. None of you do. How were you to know I was clueless?”

“We could have asked,” he points out.

“Maybe. But it’s done now.” Her brow scrunches up, almost contemplative. “I still would’ve agreed, you know. If I had known I couldn’t leave. I still would’ve helped all of you. Volfred-- Sandalwood-- he gave me the opportunity to leave again just now, to back out of this since I won’t find my freedom through this.”

He turns to look at her more, studying her face. There’s an undeniable intelligence there, and something kind. He saw it on her when he first met her, and he still sees it now. It’s not often that the Downside doesn’t strip people of that. Eventually, this place takes its toll, one way or another.

“This is what I’ve decided I’ll spend the rest of my life doing, if I must,” she continues. “I’m not sure how long, but--”

Suddenly she moves one hand to her stomach, right on top of where she’s heavily bandaged, a strained expression crossing her face. Tentatively, he reaches out to touch her shoulder. She jumps at the feeling of his hand against her, even through the heavy layers of cloth she has wrapped around her to protect her from the biting cold of Mount Alodiel.

He pulls his hand back quickly. “Sorry.”

After a moment she shakes her head. “It’s alright.”

He gestures vaguely in the direction of her stomach. “Your injuries, have they not healed--?”

The Reader sighs then, as if the very question causes her pain. “The bandaged ones have begun to, yes, although they still hurt. But the rest of it…”

He thinks of her limp, the one she walks with like she’s known it all her life, and perhaps she has; of the splitting migraines she’s often plagued by that cause her to retreat into the darkest corners of the blackwagon and sit in silence until they pass; of her dizziness and nausea. All lingering ailments that have built up, made her incompatible with the Rites, at least directly participating in them.

“I suppose those won’t be healing, then?” he asks.

She laughs then, soft and quiet like everything about her, but it startles him nonetheless. A small pained smile spreads across her face. “I’m afraid not. Who knows, perhaps I’ll simply die of these blasted wounds before our journey is over.”

“I should hope not. You would be a very bright light to lose out here in the dark,” Hedwyn says.

Her laughter stops. A long moment of quiet passes. Finally, she says, “You would all be fine without me. You have Volfred now.”

Hedwyn thinks of the other man and yes, perhaps they could make it to their goal with his help, but it wouldn’t be the same without her, would it?

“But we want you too,” he says.

She sighs, long and deep. “A part of me hopes these wounds do take me before our journey’s end. At least then…”

She trails off.

He quietly pushes his shoulder up against hers, a move that he hopes is reassuring, before she finally relaxes.

“At least then I wouldn’t be alone,” she finally finishes. After a moment she chuckles again. “It’s silly, isn't it?”

“It’s not,” he reassures, as much as it makes his heart heavy to think about. He understands not wanting to be alone.

“Ah well.” With another sigh she leans back, moonlight illuminating the angles of her face in a way that leaves her almost ethereal. “There’s no use dwelling on thoughts like those. What matters most to me is that I see you all to your own freedom, at the very least.”

Freedom, he thinks, and remembers her answer to Sandalwood’s question. _Freedom is life without fear._ There will be no freedom here in the Downside for their Reader, not with the fear of a lonely death without them looming over her.

And it’s fascinating, really, the incomprehensible connection he feels with the Reader; the connection he felt from the moment he spotted her lying broken in the sand. A sense of understanding. Of likeness. One he hasn’t felt with anybody since before his exile, since blue feathers and the rush of adrenaline as two should-be would-be enemies fled together into the night, the briefest of connections forming that night and haunting him since. But this-- the Reader, quiet and contemplative and coming face to face with her own fate to remain here even if the rest of them are liberated, accepting it with a sad sort of grace-- this is not a fleeting thing, not a passing fancy. There’s a warmth here, a spark of friendship kindled by hardship and a common goal.

He understands the Reader, maybe more so than he’s ever understood another soul, and he can’t just _leave her_.

“You won't perish here,” Hedwyn declares suddenly, a rush of stubborn determination filling him. She turns to look at him, her eyes blown wide with starlight and surprise. He reaches out and touches her shoulder again, this time with no hesitation. She shivers against his touch, eyes darting between his face and the hand he rests against her. “Not if I have any say in it.”

A faint flush cuts across her cheeks, barely visible in the low light, and he clears his throat.

“Not if any of us have a say in it.”

She regards him with wonder for a long moment, looking him over as if trying to read him like her book or the stars. Finally, silently, she turns back to look up at the sky. For a moment he worries that he’s upset her, but then she moves slightly, leaning against his side with her head on his shoulder. Frozen in place, he allows her to shift until she's comfortable.

For the briefest second he catches wetness in the corner of her eyes, just barely glinting off the moonlight, before she blinks rapidly and it's gone.

“You said it was cold here,” she says quietly, her breath warm against the air.

“It is,” he murmurs, and lets the hand resting on her shoulder move to the small of her back.

She’s quiet, always so quiet. Then, “It’s not so bad.”

They sit in silence for a while longer, her cheek against his shoulder, and Hedwyn thinks about freedom and all of its many meanings.

**Author's Note:**

> also hey pour one out for everybody who tries to write fic for this fandom and tries tagging since our literal playable character is called the Reader LMAO


End file.
